If you’ve read this blog in the past, you’d know about ‘Fat Lady Loses 50’, a series of posts dedicated to telling my story about how I am losing the baby weight and *cough* some other residual weight I’ve gained since my lifestyle has become much less sedentary in this new life as a mom.

As you may already know, this life of mine as a mom is not new any longer. My son is four and a half and growing like crazy. Egad, seriously!

I’m telling you this because I’ve had a breakthrough of sorts on the subject. I am dropping the FAT but not in the way you might think.

I have been ‘trying’ to own the word FAT by shedding a label that pokes fun at myself as a way to let go of the pain it has caused me and to get to why I’m holding on to the excess poundage.

I didn’t know it but I was fat-shaming

I have been fat-shaming myself and I didn’t know it, not really. I thought that by calling myself FAT I was owning it, that I was taking back the power that word had over me for so many years.

I don’t think it has worked very well so I am letting the moniker go. I’m not sure how I will describe my journey back to health (sans a certain amount of weight) but that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is taking each day one at a time.

Here’s what I’m working on in the meantime.

• Taking the focus off the number on the scale and focus instead on being awesome, brave, having fun, and breathing more deeply!
• Getting enough sleep every night.
• Getting my 16 hugs a day.
• Logging some physical activity every day.
• Living more simply.
• Making healthier choices when feeding my family.
• And living in the moment, because really what else do we have?
• Looking for love in all the right places!

There is no place for fat-shaming in my life anymore. The most important person in my life deserves to be treated kindly and with great respect and love.

After all, you can’t give what you don’t have.